DOMINIC, SAINT, AND THE DOMINICAN ORDER.
St. Dominic (§ 1). Achievements and Contro-
His New Order (§ 2). versies (§ 5).
Its Constitution (§ 3). Present Condition (§ 6).
Its Development {§ 4). The Sisters (§ 7).
Dominic was born at Calaroga, a village of Old Castile in the diocese of Osma, 1170; d. at Bologna Aug. 6, 1221. That his father belonged to the noble family of Guzman, as many Dominican writers assert, can not be proved. At seven he was sent to his uncle, archpriest of Gumiel d'Izah, to be educated, and at fourteen went to study philosophy and theology at Palencia, where celebrated teachers were already lecturing, though the university was not founded until 1209. I. St. He soon distinguished himself by his Dominic, progress in study and by his devotion and charity, selling his books to help the poor. Between 1194 and 1199 he became a canon and later subprior in the cathedral chapter of Osma, which had been reformed under the Augustinian rule. In 1203 he was taken by his bishop, Diego de Azevedo, as companion on a journey, probably to the court of Guy of Lusignan in southern France, on the commission of Alfonso VIII., to ask for a wife for his son Ferdinand. The embassy went again to receive the princess and conduct her to Spain; but she died before their arrival. Diego took Dominic with him to Rome, where the latter requested Innocent III. to relieve him of his bishopric that he might go as a missionary to the Saracens. The pope refused; and on a third journey through southern France Diego and Dominic met at Montpellier (1204) the Cistercian abbots, Arnold of Citeaux, Peter of Castelnau, and Raoul, who had been entrusted by Innocent with the mission to the Albigenses. Diego urged that the heretics should be converted by the preaching of poor apostolic men, who should renounce all pomp and luxury. This method, so different from the
Dominic
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
one in vogue, was approved by the legates. Diego and Dominic, and others, went out two by two, barefoot, without retinue, to preach and dispute in the nobles' castles, in the effort to win back the Cathari and Albigenses to the Church. But heresy was too wide-spread and deep-rooted in the south of France for much impression to be made by these few laborers in the Montpellier district alone. To have a base for the work, Diego founded a convent of nuns at Prouille, in the diocese of Toulouse, into which in 1206 eleven high-born ladies were received, nine of them converts.
.After Diego had returned to his diocese, where he died in 1207, Dominic carried on the work with zeal and energy. He introduced the rule of Augustine and strict observances into the convent of Prouille. In 1208 Peter of Castelnau was murdered, and Innocent III. proclaimed a crusade against the .Albigenses (see New Manicheans, II.). Dominic apparently took no part in this, but continued his work in the old spirit, supported by the higher clergy. He declined several bishoprics offered to him, to remain true to his mission, feeling called to devote his whole life to showing that the Church had a heart still for the poor misled folk who were alienated from its fold. In 1215 Bishop Fulco of Toulouse assigned one-sixth of the diocesan tithes to the support of his work, and took Dominic to Rome to the Lateran Council, there to seek confirmation from the pope for the foundation of a new order. The council had just ruled against the multiplication of orders, and Innocent, while taking the convent of Prouille under his protection, advised Dominic to choose some established rule for his associates. After his return they talked the matter over and chose the Augustinian rule with the institutions of the Premonstratensians; the new brotherhood would thus be a society not of monks, but of canons regular, with the special purpose of defending the faith and combating heresy by preaching (whence the official name, ordo -proedicatorum, " order of preachers "). Dominic recognized the necessity of learning for this end, and sent his six companions, who had no technical training, to the theological school at Toulouse.
He was in Rome from Sept., 1216, to Easter, 1217, and obtained from Honorius III. the confirmation of his new order. According to the bulls, it was not originally a mendicant order, but adhered to the older conception of the vow of poverty, as forbidding only the possession 2. His New of property by the individual, not by Order. the community. Nor was it at first distinguished from the old canons regular by assuming a universal character; it was several years before papal briefs instructed archbishops, bishops, and other prelates to allow the brothers to preach in their dioceses, assume the cure of souls, and hear confessions. At the feast of the Assumption, 1217, Dominic sent out his associates in aU directions. He fixed his eyes especially on the three centers of intellectual life, Paris, Rome, and Bologna. Matthew of Paris with seven brothers went to the first-named, where they occupied the monastery of Saint Jacques in 1218 (hence the
popular French name for the order, Jacobins). Dominic went to Rome with some of his younger disciples, and sent two brothers thence to Bologna in 1218. Two more were left behind at Prouille and two at Toulouse; four went to Spain, where they had little success — it was not until the founder himself visited Spain (1218) that two houses, one for men at Seville and one for women at Madrid, came into existence. On a visit to Paris in 1219 he found thirty brothers ; five years later the number was 120. Toward the end of that year he was again in Rome, where the pope gave him the difficult commission of assembling in a convent all the scattered nuns who were living uncloistered i- Rome. Supported by Cardinal Hugo of Ostia, tl later Gregory IX., he succeeded in his task, aH' founded the convent of San Sisto for them, whi he and his brothers occupied the monastery . Santa Sabina near the pope's palace. This proximity led to his noticing the careless lives of the papal retainers, who spent their time in drinking and dicing; he got them together and gave them regular spiritual conferences. From this fact grew the story that the pope appointed him magister sacri palatii — an office the existence of which is first demonstrable under Gregory IX., though later it was regularly conferred on a Dominican; it acquired great importance in the time of Leo X., when its holder was made the official censor of books.
The first general chapter of the order was held at Bologna in 1220, when it became a mendicant order by the decision to renounce all property and fixed incomes. Although its founder died solemnly cursing those who should bring temporal possessions into his order, the vow of poverty was never pushed to its extreme limit among them, and they thus escaped the dissensions which rent the Franciscan order over this question. No objection was ever raised against the possession of churches and convents, though the oldest constitutions (1228) prescribe that these shall be small and plain. A laxer conception of poverty was not long in making its way; though the later constitutions still formally ruled out possessiones et reditus, the prohibition was not observed, and Martin V. abrogated it in 1425 for certain houses, and Sixtus IV. in 1475 and 1477 for the whole order.
After a journey through northern Italy, Dominic returned to Bologna, where he won for the order Master Conrad, the first provincial of Germany (see Conrad of Marburg). His last sojourn in Rome was in the winter of 1220-21. The second general chapter met in Bologna May, 1221, and decidetl that future meetings should take place yearly, alternately in Bologna and Paris, a provision which fell into disuse. At this chapter, if not before, the constitution was completed.
It distinguishes the order sharply 3. Its Con- from the older ones. It is organized
stitution. from the top, where stands a mastergeneral, of far more power than the abbots-general of earlier organizations. In conformity with the universal character of its mission, the vow of stabilitas loci is omitted, and that of obedience is made immediately to the general. He